■ China
Japan sends experts
Tokyo has sent experts to investigate drums of poison gas thought to have been left by the Japanese army after World War II that sickened dozens of people in China's northeast last week, a Japanese official said yesterday. Two people were "close to death" with breathing problems after exposure to the gas in the city of Qiqihar, the state newspaper China Daily said. It said 32 others were hospitalized, including one man with chemical burns on 95 percent of his body. The poison, believed to be mustard gas, was released Aug. 4 after construction workers unearthed the five drums at a building site.
■ Australia
Governor-general sworn in
Queen Elizabeth's new representative in Australia was sworn in yesterday, three months after her previous envoy was forced to resign in the wake of two sex scandals. Major-General Michael Jeffery, a decorated Vietnam War hero, was appointed Australia's 24th governor-general in a formal ceremony at the national parliament. Jeffery replaces Peter Hollingworth, a former Anglican archbishop, who left the job amid public anger over his protection of a pedophile priest in the 1990s and over a 40-year-old, unproven rape case that was eventually dismissed.
■ Japan
Abudction issue to be raised
Japan plans to raise the abduction of its citizens by North Korea at six-way talks to be held late this month in Beijing on the crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions, a Japanese official said yesterday. But the official said the issue of the abductions, which took place decades ago but have dogged relations between Japan and the reclusive communist state, would be resolved bilaterally. "This is an important issue so this will be raised," the official quoted Japanese chief Cabinet secretary Yasuo Fukuda as saying at the end of a three-day visit to Beijing. North Korea has admitted kidnapping 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to help train spies, saying eight of them subsequently died.
■ Australia
Penis enlargement blasted
Men who want their penises surgically enlarged are showing signs of profound psychological disturbance as well as risking infection, the president of the Australian Society of Plastic Surgery said yesterday. Dr Alfred Lewis said that the same could not be said of women seeking breast enlargement. "Breasts are public organs and the penis isn't -- it's a private organ," he told reporters at an international plastic surgery conference in Sydney. Lewis said he would personally never perform a penis enlargement. "It's a completely and absolutely unnecessary operation which I think, in the patient requesting it, is showing a fairly profound psychological disturbance," he said.
■ Pakistan
Man kills relatives
A man sneaked into his brother's home and shot to death his sister-in-law and his four teenage nieces, apparently because he believed two of the nieces had disgraced the family's honor by having affairs, police said yesterday. The man, Shaukat Ahmed, shot each of the women in the head at close range Sunday, said police spokesperson Mirza Liaqat Ali. The brother was away from home at the time of the attack, which took place in Muridke, 30km north of Lahore. Only the eldest niece, 18-year-old Misbah, made it to a hospital, where she died during emergency care.
■ Venezuela
Mother strongly sacrificial
Venezuelan mother Jenny Navarro has sold off her television and video player to keep her family afloat -- now she is offering to sell one of her kidneys for US$150,000 to pay for her children's education. "I'm willing to do whatever I can for my kids," said Navarro, an unemployed systems technician who shares a room with her three children in a poor neighborhood in eastern Caracas and is struggling to survive the recession battering her country. "It's getting desperate. They are not going to miss their education because of me," she said in an interview. Venezuela, the world's No. 5 oil exporter, is caught in the worst economic downturn in its history amid political conflict over the rule of leftist President Hugo Chavez.
■ Colombia
Truck bomb wounds 17
A truck bomb exploded near a radio station in central Colombia on Sunday, wounding at least 17 people, police said. Authorities blamed rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, for the attack in the town of San Martin, near the city of Villavicencio in Meta state. Jose Arnulfo, the police commander in Meta state, told Canal Uno Television that between 17 and 20 people were wounded in the blast, which severely damaged Super Radio, a gas station and several houses. Authorities offered 20 million pesos (about US$7,000) for information leading to the arrest of those responsible.
■ France
Farmer's leader steps down
France's best-known farmer, Jose Bove, said Sunday that he will step down next year as spokesman of his radical union and anti-globalization movement, the Farmers' Confederation. Bove, who gained fame as an anti-globalization activist in 1999 by ransacking a McDonald's restaurant under construction in southern France, said he would leave the job in April. Speaking during a massive protest against the World Trade Organization, Bove suggested he didn't want to continue to dominate the group. ``It would be very dangerous to personalize the movement,'' he said. The Farmers' Confederation promotes traditional agriculture and opposes genetically modified produce and fast food.
■ Outer space
Couple marries via satellite
A cosmonaut circling 380km above the earth on the International Space Station married his fiance in Texas on Sunday in the first space wedding. Peering into each other's eyes via a satellite video hookup at NASA's Johnson Space Center, the two exchanged vows before 200 people in a ceremony that ended with bride Ekaterina Dmitriev blowing new Ukrainian husband Yuri Malenchenko a long distance kiss.
■ United States
Dancer Hines dies of cancer
Actor and dancer Gregory Hines, 57, who tap-danced his way to fame in movies such as The Cotton Club and White Nights, died of cancer on Saturday, his publicist said Sunday. Hines, who won a Tony award for best actor in the musical Jelly's Last Jam, was born in New York and learned to tap-dance at the age of three. Hines and his brother Maurice performed together in the musical revue Eubie! in 1978 and in Broadway's Sophisticated Ladies. On television, he had his own series in 1997 called The Gregory Hines Show. Gregory Oliver Hines was born on Feb. 14, 1946, in New York City.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel
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